There is no meaning to life
- Alphabravo123
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There is no meaning to life
- Grecorivera5150
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Re: There is no meaning to life
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Re: There is no meaning to life
Alphabravo wrote:
We justify our lives practically by reason of the necessity to stay alive. From the view from eternity, we justify our lives by creating truth and good during the process of existing.How can we justify our lives when they are so inconsequential in vast scope of this entire metaphysical plane?
- Grecorivera5150
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Re: There is no meaning to life
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Re: There is no meaning to life
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Re: There is no meaning to life
The meaning of life is your own presence in the universe, however short lived. Make good use of it, find something that fills your soul. There is something for everyone that they can passionately pursue, but you need to find it. Nobody else can do this for you. Once you immersed yourself into your significan passion you won't have time to be concerned with insignificance. Act and you will find meaning.Alphabravo123 wrote:Nothing we do matters at all. Our short physical existences are but a micro fraction of the blink of an eye in the face of time. Therefore, no emotion or action can make any true difference, seeing as our society will last at the most only a few million years. Our corpses will have turned to ash, disintegrated, and have been reabsorbed and redistributed by the universe myriads of times, and any insignificant deed will be forgotten. In light of this knowledge, I implore you, what reason is there to exist at all? How can we justify our lives when they are so inconsequential in vast scope of this entire metaphysical plane?
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Re: There is no meaning to life
- Grecorivera5150
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Re: There is no meaning to life
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Re: There is no meaning to life
A similar argument is found in relation to time -- we only live a short while on a very long time-scale, so therefore our lives are meaningless. Once again, this is also a bad argument, since it is not clear whether our lives would be any more meaningful if we happened to live longer.
Perhaps there is no "meaning" ascribed to our lives from some third-party source (God? the "universe"? etc.), but meaning always starts with the things you take for granted -- meanings that you don't choose but find yourself always already with: memories of childhood, grandma's baking, the value of friends and family. Such meanings are not "chosen" by the individual actively, but are passively acquired by virtue of being a human being. We can surely evaluate such meanings after the fact, but that already presupposes there is such meaning in the first place. Despite what the existentialists say, meaning isn't always chosen consciously. Most meanings are ones that creep upon us without our realizing it. Quite often we find ourselves with meanings unbeknownst to ourselves. This is not due to any God or third-party source implanting meanings in us, but this is rather the way human consciousness operates on conscious and subconscious levels.
Such is the nature of human existence (and it does have an essence).
Cheers.
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Re: There is no meaning to life
- Grecorivera5150
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Re: There is no meaning to life
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"meaning" vs purpose to life
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Re: There is no meaning to life
I suggest that this is a false dichotomy. In fact, both of these choices mean the same thing, since embracing religion is a choice just like any other, but this is not the point I would like to make...
The point I would like to make, however, is that there is a *third* alternative that few people often recognize. This is the position that life consists of meanings (notice the plural) that are often acquired by virtue of being a human being existing in the world -- a human being with emotions and a capacity for passivity. This is to say that in life there are meanings that are neither actively chosen by the individual (i.e., the myth of existentialist choice) nor given by some transcendent source like God, etc. There are very simple examples of such meanings everywhere in our lives:
* fond memories of childhood * looking forward to an event * feeling love someone close (grandmother, spouse, close friend)
Of course, we always have the capacity to take a "backward step" and re-evaluate such meanings at any given time. However, such meanings are not initially "chosen" by an individual as meaningful. Rather, such meanings *happen* because we are human beings who *naturally* place meanings on things often without realizing it. If you will, some meanings are *unconsciously* meaningful unbeknownst to the choosing radars of the conscious individual.
If you ask a person why they love grandmother, it would be strange of them to say "because I choose to." Rather, one's love for grandma is *acquired* because one recognizes the kindness and gentleness of grandma and feels a natural inclination to love her. Likewise, a fond childhood memory is meaningful to a person because they associate positive emotions with it. There is no active "choosing" of meaning here. It is a meaning that one finds oneself with. After the fact, one can surely re-evaluate that meaning (such as the memory or love for a person), but that already *presupposes* the meaning is there in the first place.
There may not be an overarching single big-M Meaning to life in general, but life does consist of MANY little-m meanings that are all around us pulling the strings of our emotions and choices without our realizing it.
Life is indeed naturally meaningful, and our capacity to choose seemingly has little to do with it.
Any thoughts?
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Re: There is no meaning to life
Alphabravo123 wrote:Nothing we do matters at all. Our short physical existences are but a micro fraction of the blink of an eye in the face of time. Therefore, no emotion or action can make any true difference, seeing as our society will last at the most only a few million years. Our corpses will have turned to ash, disintegrated, and have been reabsorbed and redistributed by the universe myriads of times, and any insignificant deed will be forgotten. In light of this knowledge, I implore you, what reason is there to exist at all? How can we justify our lives when they are so inconsequential in vast scope of this entire metaphysical plane?
Sad, but I don't know.
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